Tag: UK Forums All Stars

In just a few weeks, I will travel to Sheffield with 5 good friends from Belfast to take part in the 8th annual UK Forum All Stars Ice Hockey Charity Tournament being held in Ice Sheffield from the 24th to the 26th July, and will feature 163 players from all over the UK playing for 8 different teams, each representing a separate charity.

So far over £165,000 has been raised since 2008, including over £45,000 this year alone, and the Northern Irish contingent of just 6 players have a combined £3.5k to their names with 3 weeks still to go!

I am delighted to be taking part in the 2015 UK All-Stars Ice Hockey Weekend. I love playing ice hockey and have heard such great things about the UK Allstars Weekend.

Set up so that fans that love the sport of ice hockey from across the UK could come together and have a fun, enjoyable and great time playing ice hockey and whilst raising money for a number of good causes.

My team is Prostate Cancer UK so please donate as much as you can for a such a great charity. Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men. Over 42,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer every year – that’s more than 110 men every day.1 in 8 men will get prostate cancer in their lifetime, and there are over 300,000 men are living with and after prostate cancer.

Thanks for taking the time to read and thanks for all the donations towards Prostate Cancer UK 🙂

For a number of years now I have wanted to do something for charity and there is no better way for me to do this than playing the sport I love.

The UK Forum All Stars Weekend has raised a phenomenal amount of money for various charities since 2008 and I am proud to be representing the Dreams Come True team at this years competition.

From the outset there was only one team I wanted to fundraise for and fortunately that is the team I was assigned. All of the 8 chosen charities carry out fantastic work however Dreams Come True is a charity that I am extremely passionate about.

Dreams Come True is a children’s charity serving England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, bringing joy to terminally and seriously ill children by making their dreams come true. Over the last 25 years Dreams Come True have helped more than 5,000 children and young people as well as their friends, family and carers.

In my work with the Belfast Giants I have been fortunate to see first hand the joy and excitement young children experience when they get to meet their favourite player, watch a practice from the bench, or go on a tour of the locker room. I want to help create moments like that for seriously ill children and their families and by supporting Dreams Come True, hopefully make the hard times a little easier for someone.

To bring me back to my first point, hockey attracts a unique breed of people. The 136 players taking part as well as the officials and fundraisers for Sheffield 2015 are not only doing something they enjoy but also they are making a difference. Please give us your support. Donate what you can, share a post on facebook, retweet a tweet and let’s get the £200K milestone smashed. Every penny is going straight to the charity and will go a long way in fulfilling the dreams of a young person.

I am glad to be representing the charity Autism Plus in this years event. We all know someone or know off someone effected by autism and how tough it can be both on the people who suffer from autism and their carers. I personally know a few people who have autism and know their families which makes playing for this charity even more special.

I have been playing ice hockey for 5 years now for the Belfast Ice Foxes which as you can tell is based from Belfast, I love the sport and being able to play in this charity event is just amazing. I am lucky enough to say that i am one of only 6 people selected from Northern Ireland from people all over the UK who asked play in this years event.

In July I will be playing in the UK Forum Charity All Star event for the Autism Plus team. The event has been setup to bring people from all round the UK together to play ice hockey and most importantly, raise money for the team they will be representing.

In the UK, it’s estimated that about one in every 100 people has Autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While there is no ‘cure’ for ASD, a wide range of treatments – including education and behaviour support – can help people with the condition.

After playing ice hockey for 3 years at the Belfast Ice Foxes, i am delighted to be selected and play for Autism Plus and raise as much as possible. So if you can spare anything at all it will be much appreciated and go a long way whether it be £1 or £5

This July I am playing ice hockey at the UK Forums All Star Weekend in Sheffield from the 24th to the 26th July. This will be my first year at this event, and I am honored to be taking part in raising money for such a great cause.

I started playing hockey 9 years ago, made it as high as the Irish Amateur League in 2010 before a hit left me with a severe concussion and kept me off the ice for the best part of 2 years before I started helping out coaching a women’s team. I’ve only recently got back to skating and practising on a regular basis so I’m still lacking fitness and getting used to it all again!

For my first year at the UK Forum All Stars I am honoured to be representing Breast Cancer Care UK, or ‘Team Boobies’ as its known. Every year nearly 55,000 people are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK.1 in 8 women in the UK will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and it is the second most common cause of death from cancer in women in the UK, killing nearly 12,000 people every year in the UK alone. Breast cancer also affects men, around 400 men are diagnosed each year.

The research into breast cancer could someday cure this, and possibly other forms of cancer. Please donate whatever you can to make this possibility become a reality.

For those I haven’t met yet, I’m Aaron, I’m 24 and three quarters, and from Bangor, Northern Ireland. 2015 will be my third UK Fallstars tournament, and this season I’m honoured to have been asked to captain Team British Heart Foundation.

Over 40,000 premature deaths in the UK are caused each year by cardiovascular disease, and the British Heart Foundation are the UK’s largest independent funder of research into cardiovascular disease.

Being asked to be a captain in any team, in any sport, is an honour. It’s something most people aspire to, and when it happens, it’s a shock.

My road to the Fallstars started about 6 seasons ago, when I first heard about the tournament. I thought it was an awesome idea. I think it’s best been described as a ‘second playoff finals weekend, without the emotional rollercoaster that goes with watching your team win or lose’.

I began playing hockey in the tail end of 2010, and first applied for the UK Fallstars in 2011, sadly, I didn’t make the roster, only the reserve list. The same happened in 2012 and 2013, until I got an email from David in April 2013 saying there had been a few people drop out and roster spots had opened up for Team Breast Cancer Care, amazingly, the team I wanted to represent. So that’s where it all started really, I made my justgiving page and spammed twitter for a solid 4 months. Team Boobs went on to win the tournament that year, which felt almost as good as hearing that the entire weekend had raised over £30,000.

In 2014 I represented Team Autism Plus, a locally based charity in the Yorkshire area. Initially I worried I wouldn’t be able to drum up as much sponsorship as the previous season. This wasn’t the case. As I’ve said before, the amount of donations and kindness and promotion you see for this event and the people taking part, is enough to restore your faith in humanity at times, and I’m sure I speak for all the players that take part, that we can’t thank everyone who donates enough for their donations and constant promotion for this event.

Hockey isn’t the biggest sport in the UK, but it has this aura around it that intrigues people, whether it be the scoring or the fights….well maybe mainly the fights, but it draws people to it. This weekend, to me, is all about the charities and meeting new people. The actual hockey plays second string to that. Whether you can or can’t skate, whether you can shoot or not, or whether you can stop or have to crash into the boards. It’s really not that important. The fact you’ve raised money for 8 great charities and being able to do so by playing and watching a sport you love, having a few fun nights out in the local area, and all while raising ridiculous amounts of money charity in the process. That’s a pretty sweet gig if you ask me.

I have no doubt that the 2015 event will carry on from the success of previous years, and I can’t wait to get into swing of things again; chatting to team mates, organising training camps, thinking up ridiculous ways to raise money, and generally, just having fun, that’s what it’s all about.

It’s an honour to take part in this event, and I can’t wait to see you all in the summer, until then, mix in a water, stay away from the mustard and play hard.